Life convict granted bail by Delhi High Court

New Delhi: Making an exception to the practice of not granting bail to a convict who has been awarded life imprisonment in a murder case during the pendency of the appeal, the Delhi high court has granted bail to a woman convicted in a double murder case.

A division bench comprising Justices G.S. Sistani and P.S. Teji has also stressed the need to depart from the practice and to release an accused on bail in such cases unless there are cogent grounds for acting otherwise.

“The practice in this court, as also in many of the high courts, has been not to release on bail a person who has been sentenced to life imprisonment for an offence under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code. The question is whether this practice should be departed from and if so, in what circumstances,” the bench asked.

“It is obvious that no practice, howsoever sanctified by usage and hallowed by time, can be allowed to prevail if it operates to cause injustice. Every practice of the court must find its ultimate justification in the interest of justice,” the bench said.

“The rationale of this practice can have no application where the court is not in a position to dispose of the appeal for five or six years. It would indeed be a travesty of justice to keep a person in jail for a period of five or six years for an offence which is ultimately found not to have been committed by him,” the bench said.

“Can the court ever compensate him for his incarceration which is found to be unjustified? Would it be just at all for the court to tell a person: ‘We have admitted your appeal because we think you have a prima facie case, but unfortunately we have no time to hear your appeal for quite a few years and, therefore, until we hear your appeal, you must remain in jail, even though you may be innocent?” the judge asked.

“It may quite conceivably happen, and it has in fact happened in a few cases in this court, that a person may serve out his full term of imprisonment before his appeal is taken up for hearing. Would a judge not be overwhelmed with a feeling of contrition while acquitting such a person after hearing the appeal? Would it not be an affront to his sense of

justice? Of what avail would the acquittal be to such a person who has already served out his term of imprisonment or at any rate a major part of it?” the bench added.

“It is therefore absolutely essential that the practice, which this court has been following in the past, must be reconsidered and so long as this court is not in a position to hear the appeal of an accused within a reasonable period of time, the court should ordinarily, unless there are cogent grounds for acting otherwise, release the accused on bail,” the bench said.